Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey by The Countess of Carnarvon

of even greater wonders, just waiting to be discovered beneath the sands. By today’s standards, though, the visitor numbers were pretty small. Travel was still the preserve of the very wealthy, and was not only expensive but arduous. The journey from Britain started with a train to Southampton, then a sea crossing to France, another train to the Riviera and a boat from Marseilles to Alexandria. The last leg of the trip was via another train to Cairo. But even in his enfeebled state, Lord Carnarvonwas a man full of wanderlust and a need for distraction and diversion.
    Virtually every year from 1902, just after Christmas, which once they had children they almost always spent at Highclere, Lord and Lady Carnarvon set out together for Egypt. There were exceptions to this choice of destination: in 1903 they thought they would try the United States, but although the
New York Times
described Almina as ‘a very pretty young woman, small and
piquante
’, it seems she didn’t love America back, considering it too brash and too fast for her tastes. In the winter of 1906 they went to Colombo and Singapore. Porchy and Evelyn were left in the care of their grandmother, Marie, much to their delight since they were tremendously spoiled. There was a summer family holiday to Cromer in Norfolk when Almina joined the children and Nurse Moss on the beach. But mostly, the Carnarvons’ trips were to Egypt.
    Sometimes they stopped off in Paris en route. Almina had many friends there and perhaps her husband judged that a few days in the luxurious surroundings of the Ritz would be a delightful interlude before the discomforts that awaited her on site at the Earl’s excavations.
    In the early days, though, the trips to Cairo were leisured affairs. Lord and Lady Carnarvon stayed at Shepheard’s Hotel on the banks of the Nile in Cairo, a magnificent building in classical French style that betrayed the influence of Napoleon’s 1798 military campaign. It was the fashionable place to stay and was always full of artists, statesmen and sportsmen, as well as genteel invalids and collectors. Almina, who delighted in a good social scene, enjoyed herself, and Lord Carnarvon’s health began to recover.
    That first season in Egypt was so beneficial that on their return to Highclere Lord Carnarvon decided to focus on a long-cherished dream, and in 1902 he founded the stud that has been such a vital part of life at Highclere ever since. He had a lifelong obsession with racing and racehorses and had a lot of success as a breeder.
    Almina also indulged her passion – in this instance, for clothes. The newspapers of her era were every bit as avid as any of today’s glossy magazines for the details of trendsetters’ wardrobes and Almina’s taste was commended numerous times in the press. The descriptions of her dresses are mouthwatering. On one occasion ‘her dress of all white orchids was much admired’. At a garden party at Kensington Palace she was ‘very smart in white muslin with incrustations of fine lace’. After another function it was reported that ‘Lady Carnarvon was gorgeous in terracotta satin with a pearl and diamond necklace.’ Her combination of petite beauty and impeccable dress sense made her a cover star many times over. On 8 November 1902, a little over a year after Eve’s birth, she appeared on the front cover of
Country Life
magazine, figure fully restored, waist laced down to nothing, looking radiant.
    The routine of summer at home, winter in Egypt, improved the Earl’s health immeasurably. In fact, he got so much better that within a couple of years, he was determined to apply for a concession and undertake some excavations himself. He had been reading about the cultures of Ancient Egypt ever since he was a boy and, as he wrote to his sister Winifred, had been seized with the ‘wish and intention even as far back as 1889 to start excavating.’ Now that he was spending more time out there, he struck up aclose and enduring